Every lounge TV on campus was lit up with ABC News on Tuesday, Sept. 10, as the two presidential candidates went face-to-face in the second 2024 presidential debate — the first for Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris since President Biden dropped out of the race. After the much anticipated event finished, I found myself asking, “What the hell was that?”
I’m a registered Democrat. I’m voting for Kamala Harris, and there’s absolutely no doubt about it. But even though I’ve already made my decision, I felt like I was missing something at the end of the debate: answers.
At one point during the debate, when asked about health care, Donald Trump said, “I have concepts of a plan.” In a lot of ways this sums up the entire thing to me: He has been preparing this campaign for years, yet he has given Americans absolutely no idea of what he’s planning to do. Now we find out it’s because he doesn’t even know. And to me, Harris didn’t do much better than Trump in offering up clear policy positions, though this might be explained by the fact that Trump kept the debate centered on Harris’ character, forcing her to spend more time defending herself than her policies.
This was arguably much better than the debate that occurred in July between Biden and Trump, but I am still sitting in my dorm room wondering what I’m even voting for. The obvious answer is human rights, but what else? What is the plan to ensure women retain rights to their bodies? How are we going to fix climate change, or at least slow it down? I am so scared for what’s going to happen next and there was no reassurance from either candidate.
I know a lot of people feel like this. I anxiously check the poll updates every day and I wince when I see how close it is. I read Instagram and TikTok posts of people arguing back and forth about who’s a better fit, but nobody asking what is going to happen to our country. I’m confused, lost and terrified.
So, yeah, I’m voting for Harris because I appreciate having rights — but what happens after she’s elected? If we got no information on her plan after the election, what is really going to happen once election day comes around?
If we rewind to 2020, this same thing happened when Biden debated former President Trump. He promised all these things during the debate (well, at least he was able to promise things) and nothing actually happened. Women are still losing their abortion rights, Black Americans and queer Americans are still actively being killed and global warming is still rapidly rising. What did we vote for?
This is not to discredit Harris and her intentions as president. I think she has potential, and I think her ideas in practice will make a huge difference. But, this debate did her absolutely no good. Republicans are howling at the top of their lungs and Democrats are screaming equally as loud, and everyone is so utterly confused about what the future of our country will look like.
The worst part is that America is exponentially more divided than we were during the last election. I am terrified at the thought of someone attacking me or screaming at me after they’ve read this article, and it shouldn’t be like that. We are making this country more and more dystopian as years pass, like we’re walking around with red and blue marks on our foreheads and we can’t be around the opposite color.
I rewatched a bit of the debate and there was so much deflecting it was hard to understand. At one point the moderator asked Trump if he would veto a country-wide abortion ban and in response he said, “Well I won’t have to because, first of all, she (Harris) said she’ll go back to the Senate but she’ll never get the vote.” When Harris was asked about inflation, she said she believed in the American dream.
So, what happens after the election? Does America break out into further political violence? Do we lose all of our rights, or do we get them back? Do our forests become factories?
I’m a registered Democrat. I’m 18 and a first-time voter. I’m voting for Harris. I’m terrified to publish this article. I don’t know what’s happening to our country. I am scared.